Seventy Seven Seconds
by hiddenmoments
Summary: In the end, seventy seven seconds is plenty long enough for each of them to realise that the hunt is ending. David, Nikki, Charlie, Alan, Liz, Colby, Billy. Reflective bits and pieces from everywhere throughout the series so far, a little post Sixteen Hours and during the first bit of Eighty Days.
1. Chapter 1

_**If it isn't mine by now, it probably never will be**_**.**

**Part I - David**

_i._

The heels of his hands are pressed to his eyes and the tension in his shoulders has reached a point where he thinks he may be becoming a hunchback.

Sitting upright on his desk is the limited file they have on Angelo Barinelli and he lifts his head from his hands, looks at the picture, takes in the eyes under the rim of the lowered hat, the long fingers wrapped around a cigar. He isn't sure whether the roiling sensation in his stomach is anger or indigestion, but he settles on anger.

That's the man responsible for the last six weeks, he tells himself as he closes his eyes again. That's the man responsible for the bruises on Billy and Colby and Liz, for the shadows in all their faces and the feral gleam that seems to be slowly consuming them and scares the hell out of him whenever he sees it.

He doesn't pretend to have any influence or authority over Billy Cooper, he never even bothered to try and be the alpha in the other man's presence. It would have been a losing battle had he chosen to fight it and if he's honest, the man has always unnerved him just a little. Colby though, familiar and dependable, has started to frighten him.

There have been more moments than he'd ever admit when he's wished for Don back simply because he doesn't know if he can hold everyone together anymore and the thought of what'll happen when he can't is too unbearable to even think about.

_ii._

Nikki brings him a fresh coffee at about eleven pm on night thirty seven. She nods at him and offers a small twist of her lips which has become the office-wide substitute for a smile recently before settling at her desk with her hands wrapped around her own cup. David knows that she's been a little more unsettled than usual since Megan had flown in from Washington but he doesn't have the energy to reassure her verbally so he just smiles as best he can in thanks.

He remembers telling Megan that he wished she was back in the office as one of them and the sad smile she'd given in response. He types a quick text message to her asking how Alan and Charlie are doing and whether Amita and Larry have come up with anything new.

She responds fairly quickly, telling him that Charlie has been alternating between manic energy, trying to come up with more movement patterns and locations, and complete dissociation and Alan is holding up as well as they could expect but that Amita and Larry are drawing blanks. It makes his stomach clench a little.

Tim King seats himself in Colby's chair a few moments later and tells David very bluntly that he both looks like shit and smells like a vagrant and would he do everyone the favour of spending some quality time with the shower in the change rooms?

It takes a moment to get over the fact that the SWAT agent had one, told him he stank and two, used the word vagrant to do so. Whatever happened to telling people they smelled like hobos, he asks as what might be the slightest hint of a real smile twists his own lips. He never knew that schoolyard bullies had such a refined vocabulary.

The other man smirks wolfishly and says that if calling him a hobo will get him into the shower quicker then he is perfectly happy to say it again for those with less extensive learning.

Liz, a cubicle over, raises her hand. Tim, smirk still in place, asks if she has a question. She smirks too and tells David very politely that he does smell like a hobo and there is a clean towel in her desk drawer that she will donate to the cause.

Billy and Colby aren't there to back him up as he protests that it's a man's prerogative to sweat a little so when Nikki takes the towel from Liz and throws it at him, he lets a small chuckle escape him and goes.

_iii._

Grateful for the building's unlimited supply, it takes about twenty minutes before the tension slowly begins to ebb away under the pounding streams of hot water.

He doesn't think it will ever really leave completely, not until they have Don and Ian home, but even just a reduction will make it easier to face the bullpen, the street, the real world and everyone that is depending on them.

Tiles cool under his forehead, he leans on the taps as he lets the water hit the skin of his shoulders and back and thinks about the last week.

After the failed raid on day thirty, he'd called his grandmother again. She'd listened as he tried to put words to the fire and the tar and the everything trying to burst free past his guard and when he'd finally accepted that he couldn't, she told him that she was at his sister's and that he should bring his friends over the next day for dinner because she was going to make his favourite.

He doesn't remember why he agreed or even asking the others, he thinks that Wright may have had something to do with convincing them to leave and sleep or eat or do anything except frighten the hell out of everyone else in the office. The five of them had somehow arrived at his sister's apartment the next evening. Billy had startled everyone by kissing his grandmother's hand in greeting and proving that upbringing never really leaves you. The table was set with plates and cutlery and glasses of lemonade.

His sister pulled him aside, saying that she'd had to convince their grandmother that she couldn't serve wine because they're on duty and the laugh that escaped him was the most genuine in what feels like months and when she hugged him in greeting, she whispered that she'd left her ex-husband and that she's sorry she didn't listen to him sooner.

They hadn't eaten so well or laughed so much in weeks and when they left, his grandmother had hugged and kissed all of them goodbye and said that she was staying through Christmas and New Year and that they simply must come back. When she reached up to kiss David, she said softly that it's okay to be scared when someone is trusting you with their life but it's the fact that you don't let the fear stop you from doing what you have to that means you've earned and deserve that trust.

When he tilts his head back to wash his face, he isn't sure how much of the water running down his cheeks is from the shower and how much is from his stinging eyes.

_iv_.

He shaves in the bathroom, and redresses.

Studying his reflection in the mirror, he realises that he might be scared to death of the trust that falls to him in Don's absence, but he won't ever let it stop him from doing his job and proving that he earned and deserves it.

The realisation straightens his shoulders and lifts his chin and makes it just a little easier to re-enter the bullpen and move to his desk. The file has fallen over but there is a note written all in capitals atop it.

_v._

In the end, sixty one seconds pass while David Sinclair digests the words scrawled in front of him and only sixteen before he erupts into action.

* * *

_**And so begins another. Most of these will probably not be especially long, just a last ditch filler to tie a few loose ends and indulge some missing moments/characters before we get to the aftermath. Poor David. It'll be okay though, they can have a cuddlepile later. Wait a minute though, I don't write happy things… bad luck. Nikki is coming up! Also, **__teddybear3__**, if you review this can you leave a way for me to get in touch with you? I really want to address the point you made in your last review for **__Sixteen Hours__** but when I typed it out it was about 350 words and that is way beyond acceptable for a note in the chapter. Because of the filters, if you leave an email or something just leave what goes before the and then the provider and whether it's a .net or .com or whatever it is.**_


	2. Chapter 2

_**The scene with Megan was completely unplanned, I hope it fits in okay. Also, tomorrow's update is going to be a bit late so I'll post this now. I'm still working through general review replies but have done my best to answer specific questions. **teddybear3**, all I got in that review out of your email was your name. I'll spread it out in the author's notes or put something on my profile for you when I get a chance :)**_

**Part II - Nikki**

_i._

Nikki doesn't think her emotions have ever been so out of control.

There isn't a word, and she knows because she's been trying to figure it out for six weeks, for the sheer frustration of knowing and still not being able to do anything.

Futile sticks in her mind as what might be the closest to it, because they fight against futility every single day and it's gotten to the point where there isn't a person in the building that isn't feeling the strain.

There isn't anything else they can do except keep raiding and trying to get more information from the men they have in custody. The woman she'd replaced in the team, Megan Reeves, had flown in from back East and watching her effortlessly slip back into the fold within minutes of arriving had been hard.

She can't help but be grateful though, because after the first day spent in the office, Megan removes herself to the Craftsman to take over keeping Alan and Charlie afloat. Liz had told her that they could concentrate more on themselves now, that Megan would have everything under control.

She feels like a despicable person when she's relieved at that because Alan's tired, knowing eyes and Charlie's up and down, manic and hollow seesawing are so draining.

She misses Ian especially in those moments and wishes that Don was back, protecting them all from themselves.

_ii._

The days after the failed raid drag at the same time as they seem to pass in the blink of an eye. Aside from the dinner with David's grandmother and sister, she doesn't think they leave the office for longer than laundry and meal trips.

It is night thirty six and it might be dinnertime or it might not be, but she has a bag of groceries and is staring blankly at the handwritten recipe for spaghetti on the counter in the office kitchen anyway when someone clears their throat quietly. Whirling around, she comes face to face with Megan.

The taller woman apologises for startling her, moving forward hesitantly and Nikki says that it's okay even as her heart continues to pound. Megan asks whether she needs a hand and Nikki waves the recipe with a rueful twist of her mouth as she admits she's a terrible cook and that any help would be great.

They're both chopping onions with stinging eyes when Megan breaks the silence and thanks Nikki in a quiet voice for being there for the others. Startled, Nikki almost drops the onion and only just manages to avoid wiping her eyes with hands soaked in onion juice.

Her own voice is mostly incredulous when she says that if that's what it looks like, she feels like it's almost the complete opposite. It lowers and she has to concentrate on making sure it doesn't crack as she tells Megan that Don's been protecting her from herself since she started and that Ian, well, Ian's been her parachute if that makes any sense at all and she feels like every time they fail to bring them home she's just proving that she doesn't deserve the place she's somehow managed to be given.

Nikki's breath hitches for a moment and it isn't just the onion that's making her eyes sting anymore when the other woman carefully puts the onion down and rinses her hands before reaching for Nikki's. She worked with them for three years, she says, and there is nothing freely given, only earned and Nikki's place is hers because of her actions and her attitude and that her presence was as much a help to the others as anything she could do with her weapon or her mind.

It only takes a few moments for the sting to fade to a manageable level and her to be able to give Megan's hands a brief, light squeeze in return before she says that the onions aren't going to chop themselves and then, almost as an afterthought, that she's really glad she finally got to meet Megan.

_iii_.

She and Liz are in the war room, staring at pictures and boards and trying to figure out just what would be their next move when David's shout reaches their ears and the sound floods her body with more warmth and adrenaline than any cup of coffee or shot of whiskey she's ever had.

There is no memory of making it to his desk or reading the note or taking the stairs because waiting for the elevator was not even an option. Her mind kicks in again when they reach the carpark and she throws herself into the back seat, already settling the stack of Kevlar vests at her side as David hits the speaker speed dial for Colby who answers on the third ring and says that they're about an hour ahead of them.

The other agent doesn't mince words as he repeats the call from Gary Walker to them and that they have a location of a vehicle registered to an alias of what they think is an upper level man of Barinelli's that has rolled over on the way into a remote industrial district near a small town. Liz asks whether there are any signs that Don and Ian were involved and Colby's voice is like the crack of a gun when he says there were two pairs of handcuffs recovered from the wreck.

Words become a little superfluous after that.

_iv._

They reach the crash sight and a local police officer offers to show them to where Billy and Colby had taken off along the trail. Questions have no place as they follow him past the rolled vehicle, past the covered corpse and forensics team and to a deep set of tyre tracks in the ground that disappear into the darkness.

Liz is the one that takes the flashlight and the lead and David brings up the rear and Nikki quakes with adrenaline as they take off at a run because there is no doubt that one way or another, this ends here and now.

_v._

In the end, twenty three seconds is long enough for Nikki Betancourt to recognise the round face of the man being loaded into the ambulance when they catch up with the rearguard of the trackers, but it takes another fifty four for her to realise what that means.

* * *

_**Poor Nikki, she's about ready to tell the FBI and all the associated angst where to go and it won't be pretty. Barinelli would make a great live-action target to vent some frustrations if Billy doesn't get to him first. I kind of liked her scene with Megan, there's something kind of fitting about both of them trying to make spaghetti in the break room – Megan because she's trying to make up for an imagined desertion when she left and Nikki because she's part of the pack but doesn't feel like she deserves Megan's place. Charlie's next. Also, **Ms. GrahamCracker **raised another really good point last chapter about whether Don would worry about personal hygiene if the tables were turned: (I can answer this quicker I hope) there is a world of difference between fast paced cases and ones like these - it's been thirty seven days, and they know for sure that they were alive seven days ago, so it isn't just fear of losing them, it's fear of what they're enduring in the interim. That'd burn them out pretty quickly for one, and there literally isn't anything they can do except what they've been doing which is essentially responding to events out of their control. I think there definitely have to be moments where they need to step away for their own sake as well as Don and Ian's, like Wright telling them to get the hell out of the office for a few hours. David's better at taking orders and seeing the bigger picture than Don, I think, so while there isn't any less desperation and drive, thirty seven hours is a period that you COULD push it to the max the whole time. Thirty seven days isn't and the team knows that.**_


	3. Chapter 3

**Part III - Charlie  
**  
_i._

When his brother's team practically crash through the door, Charlie can't help but be reminded of the time that Ian Edgerton had barged into his classroom, looking every inch the quintessential FBI agent, to tell him that Don was in trouble.

He's already putting his marker down and turning his back to the class when he notices the torn sleeve and bloodstained bandage, the stench of cordite and the twisted Kevlar vests. His students must be beyond thrilled at this sight of the glamorous, dangerous world that they associate his work for the FBI with, he thinks, but forgets all about that when he sees the pained look in Colby's eyes and the fact that he's never been able to read fear so clearly from any of these agents as he can right now.

That, more than anything, tells him just how wrong everything is going to become when David opens his mouth. He leaves the classroom at a run when reality hits, and the tiny bit of his brain that registers Nikki's awkward order for the class to take an early recess isn't enough to realise how eerily similar to Ian's it is.

_ii._

There just isn't enough data and not even the numbers can blunt the sharp edge of terror that makes it so hard to think.

The right numbers are dancing just out of his reach and sometimes it gets too difficult to breathe, to keep his eyes open and his hands moving and he can barely even look at his father because he sees things he doesn't want to acknowledge written in the lines of Alan's face.

He can't stand the sight of Colby's bandaged arm or David's drawn features, the set of Liz's mouth or Nikki's trembling hands.

He can't stand the sight of Billy Cooper at all because all he sees are a pair of bright blue eyes and gleaming teeth and, just like the picture on their mantelpiece, a pair of crinkled, shining brown ones and blinding smile right next to them.

He can't stand it because when he, blinks nothing but the blue eyes and gleaming teeth are there anymore and that is _wrong_.

_iii_.

He's in the garage when a tall, red-headed whirlwind slams files against the blackboard he's working on.

The eyes aren't bright anymore and the teeth are behind lips tight with anger. Somehow, the difference is enough to crack his thin defences and he listens as a voice, low and dangerous, says that he needs to listen and concentrate now because a hunch is everything they have to go on and there are two people that are depending on _them_to make the connection that will bring them home from wherever they are.

Charlie will do anything for Don because Don has always been willing to do anything for Charlie and he thinks that if all he has to do is concentrate, then he will listen to Billy Cooper and concentrate like he never has before.

_iv._

Smug satisfaction settles in his stomach as he watches Billy and Colby and Liz prowl the interrogation room like predators on the hunt. It lasts, all the way through his work with the techs and the drive back to Pasadena as Amita and Larry talk quietly, all the way to his chalkboards.

It lasts when he looks at the picture pinned to one of the boards, a photocopy of the shot of Angelo Barinelli and it lasts as he scrawls a violent promise beneath the picture.

It lasts all the way until he has to go to the study for a book and passes his father, sitting on the floor of Don's childhood bedroom with a cream coloured envelope and an expression he can't even explain on his face.

The book is forgotten as he kneels beside Alan and the words printed across the front of the envelope sear themselves across his eyes so that even when the sensation of a sucker punch makes his stomach almost abandon his body and his eyes close, they're still written across the inside of his eyelids.

When he can open them again, he realises that there isn't a word for the expression on a father's face when he holds the last will and testament of his son in his hands and realises that he might have to read it.

There simply aren't words for the feeling that swallows him whole when he realises that it is _his_ father holding _his_brother's last will and testament and Charlie's brain doesn't do well with things that can't be quantified.

If he could, he would probably be grateful that his brain stops processing it there and returns to the book he'd been searching for. If he hadn't shut down the necessary functions, he'd be equal parts grateful and horrified that his brain forgets all about his father because it just can't handle this.

_v._

Amita's fingers are threading gently through his hair when the sharp ringing of a cell wakes him. Megan's voice is quiet as she answers it from the other side of the living room, but so is the house and he can hear snatches of the conversation even as his eyes refuse to open.

He hears words that paint a picture that his mind pieces together, that Megan slowly, hesitantly, sadly presents to Alan, even though rationally he knows that they're words he never wanted to hear.

Somehow, he doesn't think he'll ever know how, his eyes open and he takes in Megan's expression, the crease in Larry's forehead and the stilling of Amita's hand in his hair.

His eyes meet his father's and it only takes that second of eye contact for everything to boil back down to numbers.

_vi._

In the end, each second seems like eternity as Charlie Eppes counts to thirty before finding the strength to rise, to fifteen before he reaches the door, to twenty nine waiting for the others to catch up with him at the car but he only gets to three as reality finally wins against his brain and everything falls apart.

* * *

_**Not completely sold on this part, I'm not sure I'm very good at writing Charlie. Probably because I always sucked at math. Alan up next!**_

_**On a much more fangirly note, I get to spend 8+ hours with a real life Coop weekly. My excitement is literally making me bounce after just 3 hours with him last night.**_


	4. Chapter 4

**Part IV - Alan**

_i._

Not even Margaret's final days had ever made him feel as old as he does in the moment when he sees his eldest son's team standing on his doorstep, huddled around his lost-looking youngest son.

If he's honest with himself, he isn't surprised. He knew this was coming from the second Don told him that he was joining the FBI, knew that he would spend the rest of his life dreading this moment where an agent with a newly thousand yard stare solely for his son would come and tell him that sir, they're very sorry but he should probably sit down, and then break his heart.

He's grateful at least that he knows these faces, and thinks that if anyone is going to have a thousand yard stare from the loss of his son, he knows that at least it is because they feel the loss that is already settling in his weary bones and somehow that is better.

_ii_.

Alan wonders what it says about him that the stating of missing, abducted, don't know who or why is somehow harder to bear than he thinks the agent saying sir, your son is dead would be.

He watches the others while he thinks it over.

Charlie is at his chalkboards and the only thing different is the shake in his hands and the mask of frightened desperation. If he'd been able to think properly of anything else, it might have made him think of P vs. NP and Margaret beyond wondering if she's looking after Don wherever he is right now.

They never did do a good enough job, he thinks, and that isn't something you can atone for with eight years of rib eye and beer every few weeks, spare shirts and blankets and a pillow on the couch.

The blank look that shutters the four pairs of eyes scattered around the garage in handfuls of snatched hours across the quietest parts of the nights is enough to make him wonder what might have been if he'd seen those missed baseball practices.

The roiling fury in the pair of eyes by the window though, that is something he knows comes from a bond that always goes both ways and he knows that somewhere out there, the other end of it is in his son's eyes.

Knowing that is enough for him to realise that maybe what might have been isn't necessarily better and really, doesn't even matter because right now they're just trying to deal with what _is_.

_iii._

He can't watch the television anymore, not with all the news coverage and the familiar faces and steadily increasing public involvement.

He can't answer the phone either, not really, because one more well-meaning old friend or forgotten relative will be the end of him, he swears it.

Instead, he sits by the koi pond sometimes, and spends more time than is necessary at CalSci. When Charlie lectures, although those times are few and far between considering the precarious line they both seem to be walking, he watches and listens from the back row until the time comes to return to either the Craftsman or the FBI building.

By the end of the fourth week, time loses what little meaning it had retained and both he and Charlie stop going to CalSci. A couple of days into the fifth week, Larry takes him along to pick Megan up from the airport.

He cooks a brisket that night and after dinner, retires to his room with the Sgt. Pepper's album and listens to it, from beginning to end, what must be half a dozen times.

The part of him that knows it isn't much longer until he gets that call wonders whether he's going to be strong enough to deal with whatever comes next.

_iv._

The fifth week ends and every time he looks at Megan he sees Don in the weeks before Margaret's passing. The reminder is painful but welcome because the others are conspicuously scarce and Alan doesn't blame them, not in the slightest, because somewhere under the haze he knows that the only way they can keep going is by keeping their hope still blazing. His has started to wane.

Billy drops by daily though, and he thinks that if it were another place, another time, he would apologise for the years he spent resenting the younger man for having a part of his son that he would never know.

Now though, he thinks that so long as someone still has that part of his son, someone who will keep it safe, he doesn't mind. He might have never had the last eight years with Don that he had if Billy hadn't been his partner and that thought is unbearable.

The picture in his hands is from the mantelpiece, Billy and Don with arms slung around each other's shoulders and smiles that take the edge off eyes that have seen too much.

If bad things happen, he guesses, maybe they're okay so long as you're in good company.

_v._

The clock ticks over from night thirty seven to day thirty eight and they stay where they are. Finally worn out, Charlie is stretched across the couch with his head in Amita's lap and Alan thinks that if any of them need it, it is probably Charlie.

Larry is in a chair, hands steepled and the lines in his face relaxed a little in thought. Megan paces, her frenetic energy and the twitch of her hand to a hip that doesn't have a holster or a gun anymore achingly familiar.

The television is on low, a basketball game that no one is paying attention to, and eventually his eyes drift to the front door and stay there. It's a foolish hope and he knows it, but he can't shake the countless nights he's spent in this very same chair knowing that if he watched the door long enough Don would walk through it and make the tight knot of uncertainty in his stomach unravel.

He isn't really waiting for Don this time, he knows that the likelihood of that is closer to impossible than improbable regardless of what Charlie says about the words.

He's just waiting for news, good or bad, and he knows that it's coming when the ringing of Megan's cell breaks the silence in the early hours of the morning.

_vi_.

In the end, Alan Eppes isn't a very religious man but there are seventy six seconds where he thinks that there might be a deity watching over him, seventy six seconds between the beginning of the phone call and the end, but only one between that foolish hope and understanding the stark truth across her face.

* * *

_**Okay so you guys can have an early posting because I watched **__Man Hunt **earlier and it makes me jittery because of Don and Coop. I won't even pretend that my train of thought there makes sense, but I hope you enjoy this, and I'm glad to hear that it seems like I got Charlie mostly alright. ****If**** Margaret Eppes was alive, she'd probably sue me for torturing her family. There isn't too much I could give them in damages though, aside from more torture. Some angsty Liz coming up tomorrow!**_


	5. Chapter 5

**Part V - Liz**

_i._

Her brother calls her on night thirty two and she's curled in the backseat of her car under Billy's orders to rest for a couple of hours because she can't stand the sight of Don's desk anymore. Her voice is still ragged from being winded when she answers his call.

He says that so long as she's okay he doesn't really need the gory details but that he's really sorry she didn't get her friends back. The tickle in her throat makes her eyes sting.

She's sorry too, she says. They got close enough to see them this time, and she can't be sure because the concussion made everything but the memory of Don's eyes blurry but she thinks she even managed to touch him. She bets that being a marine biologist would be better for her blood pressure and confesses that she wishes she listened to him sometimes, usually when the adrenaline wears off.

Daniel is silent for a moment and she tries to control the rasp in her breathing as the pressure builds behind her eyes. Don was the last serious boyfriend she had, he says, wasn't he?

The sound she makes is supposed to be some kind of yes, but it just sounds strangled and sad as she presses her face into her knees and her cell closer to her ear.

When he asks her to tell him about Don, another strangled sound escapes before she can get her voice back and say okay, she will. When her throat relaxes enough to form words, she hiccups her way through the story that makes her bones ache with loss already; that Don was her tactical instructor at Quantico and that part of her pushed so hard to prove to him that she was more than just a pretty face because she knew that it didn't matter how pretty she was, grit was the only way to get to a man like that.

Then they met again in LA, he says.

She manages to breathe out a proper yes this time as she says quietly that she's never been so glad to be stood up as she was when it meant she got to spend the night with Don instead and that it happened almost in spite of both of them and it doesn't matter how hard seeing him but not having him was, she doesn't regret a second of it.

And she still loves him, Daniel says just as quietly. Doesn't she?

Even after she hangs up and tries to compose herself, the fact that she couldn't say no, she doesn't still love him, won't stop haunting her.

_ii._

When Megan arrives and their ranks open to allow her right back in as though she never left, Liz finds herself wrapping her arms around the other woman's neck and holding on for dear life. Colby's arm is warm and solid against her back as he holds them both for a long moment, and Liz might be the only one who sees David blink away a shine in his eye as he moves to do the same.

A day later, when she sees Nikki's face, sees the lost look under the stonily set features, she wishes she'd brought the younger woman into the group hug.

Another day after that, when she sees them both in the kitchen surrounded by groceries, holding each other up, she realises it was better that they did this on their own.

_iii._

Tim King gives her a wink as David disappears down the hall with the towel slung over his shoulder. He rises and settles a large hand on Nikki's shoulder, then hers.

His voice is deceptively gentle, quiet with understanding, as he says that he's going to be in the building for the next few hours if they need anything, and that Billy and Colby both have his direct line.

She smiles a little, and Nikki raises an eyebrow at the mention of Billy and Colby, making a wisecrack about how little it must take to get a hold of his number.

The SWAT agent laughs louder than the joke warrants and asks why she's so curious, is she after it?

Liz laughs too because light moments have been few and far between lately, and points out that they could probably make millions off a how-to guide about getting SWAT agents' numbers.

King grins and says he usually starts with at least a dinner invitation, bonus points if they cook and look pretty while doing so.

Nikki's giggle sets Liz off as she asks whether Billy and Colby wore an apron and cooked the steak right or if it was just their looks that did it for him?

They both quiver with laughter as King cottons on, and for a moment, it's all too easy to forget.

_iv._

The drive is mostly a blur as her fingers dance across her thighs, twitching with nervous energy. David's knuckles are pale with tension and the strength of his grip on the wheel as the wailing sirens bounce about in her skull.

The incessant movement is all she can concentrate on as they give her a flashlight and point her in a direction and running is so much better than jittering knees and tapping fingers.

When the motion finally ceases, she recognises the understanding dawning on Nikki's face and can't help but wonder what she's missing as she watches the EMTs load the overweight, bloodstained figure of a man they'd only seen in sketches before into an ambulance.

Her ears catch the faintest hint of a feminine scream and then David is running ahead, shouting something she doesn't really hear and Nikki is still standing there, staring blankly at the now closed doors of the ambulance as another rockets by them, engine roaring.

She reaches for her radio because the ice settling in her stomach makes her think that she really would like to figure out what is going on.

_v._

In the end, it takes ten seconds for her shaking hands to settle her earpiece, four to recognise the panicked calls and answering silence, three for comprehension to sink into her bones and exactly sixty before Liz Warner realises there are tears streaming down her face.

* * *

_**Oh, Liz, you poor thing. I want to say don't cry because everything will be okay, but that would be kind of counterproductive AND a big fat lie. Colby coming right up. I get to spend eight hours with real-life Coop tomorrow, I'm pretty sure being this excited about that is a sign that I have some serious issues.**_


	6. Chapter 6

_**These last two are light on the reflection and heavy on the action, covering only the few hours between the phone call from Walker and finding Don and Ian.  
**_**  
Part VI : Colby  
**  
_i._

The expression that takes over Billy Cooper's face as he talks makes something primal rise in Colby.

When the older man ends the call and moves the note from Gary Walker onto David's desk, his eyes meet Colby's. A smile, terrifying and bright, spreads across his face and Colby's own mouth splits into a feral grin.

The hunt begins in earnest now, and there is nothing else in his mind as the office, the stairwell, the lobby, everything, narrows to the view out of the windscreen as burning rubber and the screech of the sirens remind him of the starting gun.

Anticipation pools in his stomach, hot and hungry, as he thinks of how badly they all need what is waiting at the finish line.

_ii. _

Walker is waiting at the scene when they arrive in the early hours of the morning, sirens wailing and an SUV that has been pushed to and beyond the limits. They follow him past the flashing patrol cars and the officers who look at them as though they're ghosts.

The bloodstained windows, the crumpled panels, the crushed foliage, the entire scene seems unreal and as he takes it all in, Colby's heart begins to thud with anticipation. Walker shows them to a small ditch nearby where a crumpled corpse is laid out and forensic techs are swarming.

An EMT offers them a nod that says everything and nothing all at the same time.

Passenger, the lieutenant explains, gesturing back at the vehicle. Looks like the driver and possibly another two or three passengers got out. Evidence suggests that the body was dumped and another vehicle arrived.

Colby knows that the expression on his face as he and Billy share a look is nothing less than wolfish. Walker's hand closes around his shoulder and squeezes briefly as he says that this ends tonight because he knows that Don and Ian are out there waiting for them.

A nod is all the response Billy gives but Colby returns the shoulder squeeze and says that they are bringing them home today because not a single one of them will settle for anything less.

_iii_.

The officers give them a wide berth as they prowl the area.

Billy reconstructs the accident in low snatches of sentences, single words, touching broken plants and impressions in the ground. Colby is the one who finds the tyre tracks and feels a hot surge of anger at the thought of Don and Ian on foot and being chased by a vehicle. He motions two agents over.

One is a senior agent, Tommy McLean, who looks as much a study in tightly restrained fury as either Billy or Colby himself must look. The other, Dominic Caruso, is younger, and his anger is clear as he joins them.

It takes another few moments before they're all set with flashlights and Kevlar and their radios. Colby takes an assault rifle at a suggestion from Billy and they find the path the vehicle took again as they make sure they're set to go.

They don't even need a briefing before they take off along the vehicle tracks, the two agents falling into line behind Colby as Billy sets the pace at a solid jog.

_iv_.

It isn't long before they have to separate.

The tracks diverge, and they don't want to waste the time figuring out whether it was backtracking or what. Tommy and Dominic take the faintest trail, into the undergrowth, and it doesn't need to be said that Billy and Colby take the ones that are most likely to lead them to Don and Ian.

If anyone is going to find them, it should be either Billy or Colby.

They move quicker on their own, and soon their tracks separate too. Colby takes the car trail while Billy keeps following the foot trail that sports spots of blood. He's the better tracker, if Colby's honest with himself, and he doesn't even question it.

Twenty minutes in, his flashlight falls over bullet casings and two bodies. There is damaged undergrowth and puddles of blood and he finds a knife, blade stained with red. Heart pounding, he checks the bodies. Both are dead and neither are Don or Ian.

His voice is still jumbled and anxious with residual panic as he reports the scene to Billy and finds the tracks heading away from the bodies.

The other man reports back that he's picked up the trail further along, four people, which correlates with the evidence Colby sees. His eyes pick out the differences between the spent shells and he tells Billy to be careful because it's likely that whoever the other two men are, they're armed.

Continuing along the trail, he sees the car abandoned just before the buildings begin to appear in the beam of his flashlight. Picking up the pace, adrenaline begins to surge.

_v_.

He reaches the injured Mario as per Billy's directions and, disappointed at the man's lack of consciousness, radios for an ambulance to the location. The fresh looking wound on the side of his head turns the disappointment to satisfaction and when Tommy and Dominic arrive, he reports that they have him in custody.

Billy reports the location of a second body, sounding pleased, and at his joke about dead men telling their tales, Colby laughs. The sound is half genuine amusement and half overwhelming relief because that means that surely the last two are Don and Ian and they just _have _to be in time. He can't even comprehend the idea that they aren't.

It doesn't matter than if he had a fuel tank, it would be empty, because he is running purely on desperation and hope now and there isn't a gauge for that.

Little more than the beginning of the next report makes it from the earpiece when he hears a scream and the bark of a dog over the radio. He takes off running as urgency and adrenaline set his entire body into motion before he even realises it. He doesn't slow as the reply comes that the other agent is fine, he just heard the bark and scream and is investigating, and somehow his stomach twists even further in upon itself.

He's barely made it a few hundred metres when Billy's voice comes again, harsh and clipped with news that makes his heart skip a few beats because Ian is alive and that's almost more than they'd ever hoped for but as he shouts for an ambulance and switches back to Billy, there is no reply to his desperate _and_?

Repeating it over and over and still receiving no reply, his legs continue to move as silence rings in his ears.

_vi._

In the end, it takes seventy seconds of radio silence for reality to hit Colby Granger and only seven for him to break under the weight of it.

* * *

_**If Colby was real, he would probably shoot me for what I put him and his team through. I would probably let him, I don't doubt I deserve it. Saving Billy and the best for last (you might want to buy some comfort food and a lifetime supply of tissues, I know I needed it when I did a pre-upload reread.)**_


	7. Chapter 7

_**Just for my own peace of mind, I need to issue a specific tissue warning for this bit so everyone is prepared. I deliberately wrote it while no one else was in the house because I knew it was going to be bad. I sobbed through the last half of the fourth section and the last sentence/section broke me completely. If you can believe me, it was even worse than **__Sixteen Hours__**.**_

**Part VII – Billy**

_i._

Colby 's voice is a little panicky and a lot rushed over the radio, something about signs of a struggle at his current location, tyre tracks and boot prints and a blood-stained knife. There's a pair of bodies, the younger man says, been dead for hours but there's crushed undergrowth, a bunch of shell casings and at least four different sets of footprints all headed further along the road, towards the town.

Billy quietly reports his location, on the outskirts of the industrial area, and explains that he's picked up another trail as he hesitantly drags his forefinger through a shallow puddle of chilled and congealed blood on the worn asphalt. Probably four people too, but all headed in the same direction.

His eyes follow the steady line of red another fifty yards along the side of the long building as the voice in his ear piece says that he should be careful because there are shell casings from several different guns at the scene and only one abandoned pistol.

Murmuring an affirmative, it only takes Billy a moment to reach another small pool of blood. The liquid is just as chilled and only fractionally less congealed this time. The trail continues around the corner, smears and pools and broken lines telling the tracker in him a story that makes his heart pound just a little faster at each sign.

There is a handprint on the side of the third building he passes, scarlet against the gleaming white of the rendered wall. A dark shadow is crumpled just short of ten yards away, lit up by the light on his gun, and he can hear shallow wheezing. His gun comes up as his legs make short work of the distance.

He doesn't hesitate to bring his boot down on the figure's chest, it is far too round to be either of the men he really wants to find. A sense of mild satisfaction settles in his gut as he leans close and recognises the face of the introducer described by the men captured at the scene of the abduction.

A biting greeting to the man, a venomous _hello_ to Mario, is all he offers before gripping the fleshy jaw hard enough to bruise. The howl of pain elicits a humourless chuckle and a hissed question.

It doesn't even take a minute to realise Mario is a waste of time and he wastes little more time in striking the man's temple with the butt of his gun and dragging the limp figure into the dim circle of light beneath a flickering streetlamp before making contact with Granger again.

Unconscious and injured awaiting trial, he says and gives the location before scanning the surroundings for any signs.

_ii._

Some backtracking is necessary before he finds the trail again. A boot print and ten minutes of methodical searching puts him back on track and the amount of blood slowly begins to increase.

Underneath the growing worry, a slow burning pride warms him. He spoke to Barinelli's henchmen, he _knows _the things they did to Don and Ian. The fact that they've made it this far is nothing short of a miracle.

He keeps hoping for just one more miracle, to find them alive.

_iii._

The trail gets easier to follow when he finds the next body, face down in the gutter of a narrow alley between a warehouse and what looks to be a workshop. The pride burns fiercely as he aims his light and takes in the cool body, the triple tap at centre mass. He would know Don's shooting anywhere.

Fatigue melts away and his fingers tighten around the Glock as he takes off at a jog, eyes trained on the progressively more frequent blood spatters.

A handprint, a smudge, a drip pattern that tells him they stopped to lean against a fence for at least five minutes. He knows that he has to be close as the area becomes more and more residential.

The voice in his ear crackles to life, saying that they've taken the introducer into custody. Recent looking head wound, though, the voice says and Billy can hear the other man's satisfaction.

Better off than the fellow he just passed, he replies and gives the location of the body. If only dead men could tell their tales. A short bark of laughter comes over the earpiece and then silence.

Continuing, he follows the steady dripping as dawn, still a little way away, begins to lighten the horizon. The streets are deserted but he doesn't know how they made it this far. His eyes light on a larger pool of blood and he kneels, fingers testing it, and is radioing in to Colby again when he hears the barking and a scream.

Warmer, he notes, can't be more than an hour or two old, and he takes off sprinting, radio forgotten.

_iv._

The voice in his ear is frantic now and he tells Granger that he's fine, he heard something, and in another minute he rounds the corner to see a young couple with a dog on a leash crouched a few yards away, looking around desperately.

Their eyes meet his and take in the gun and the woman skitters away, terror written all over her face as she huddles against the shocked looking man who is desperately trying to hold the barking dog back.

His world has narrowed to the two men sprawled together on the pavement as he skids to a halt, one hand reaching forward to the first neck he can make out underneath the blood and dirt while the other holsters his weapon.

There are a few seconds of panic before he finds a weak, thready pulse and tilts the head towards him. His heart descends a little lower in his throat as his eyes take in an unconscious Ian Edgerton's pale, slack features and he barks into his radio that he's found them, that Edgerton has a definite pulse and to get the medical team rolling yesterday.

Granger's anxious voice, the pleading demand of _and? _hardly registers in his already ringing ears as his hands steady enough to reach past Ian for the second figure, one tilting the bloodstained face far enough to make out the familiar features and staying on the cool skin as the other moves to probe the exposed throat.

Weeks' worth of ragged stubble scratches at the pads of his fingertips as blood pounds in his ears and the edges of his vision blur. He presses harder against the skin, desperation making his whole body shake. He barely feels the impact when his balance wavers and his knees hit the ground as the uneven crouch fails.

His lips move soundlessly for he doesn't even know how long before a single, pleading _Don _manages to escape them and his eyes flutter closed against the sudden sting. His hand slides from the face and around the neck to the base of the skull, fingers splaying through thick hair as his entire body tenses like he's been hit with a battering ram.

A single tear makes its' way through his lashes and burns a path down his cheek as, fingers curling at the knuckles and still pressed to the motionless throat, his forehead falls slowly, gently, to rest against another and everything fades into white noise.

_v._

In the end, it only takes seventy seven seconds of stillness beneath his desperate fingers for the world to finally break Billy Cooper.

* * *

_**So, the end of another part and in the end, I am probably the most horrible writer in the world for what I've done to these poor darlings. I do just want to hug Billy though, even I keep tearing up whenever I look over this. (Next session with his doppelganger is going to be delicious torture, in the first session he said if we ever need a hug to just go for it and it is going to be SO HARD not to just be like 'Can I give you a hug? I'm so sorry I killed your best friend IT WASN'T MY FAULT PLEASE DON'T HATE ME')**_

_**Also, I wrote this whole thing in reverse which might explain a lot about how oddly it turned out.** Eighty Days __**should slot relatively neatly in here if you disregard the first section of it. **__There Were Nine __**is being a bit of a pain because I'm not entirely sure where it's going, but once I have it figured out I will get it up! I look forward to hearing what you all think of this.**_


End file.
